Written in the interwar period and published in 1927, this psychological thriller has captured the imagination of Romanian readers ever since. The book begins with a murder, as Puiu, a young aristocrat, strangles his wife on the night of the royal ball. To avoid a public trial and prison sentence, his father arranges to have him committed to a mental asylum.

Puiu’s discussions with his psychiatrist force him to confront his conscience and lead him to trace the root of his murderous passion to a wild, Dyonisian peasant dance called the Ciuleandra, where he first glimpsed his future wife. Unfortunately for Puiu, though, his psychiatrist may have more than a professional interest in the case…

This story of obsessive love paints a fascinating picture of the changes in Romanian society at the beginning of the 20th century. The work echoes the cultural landscapes evoked by Russian writers such as Dostoevsky and Gogol, as moments of high drama and emotional intensity bring to life the complex relationship between a decaying aristocracy and the rural world.

The first chapter of this new translation of Ciuleandra was longlisted for the John Dryden Translation Prize, awarded by the British Comparative Literature Association.

Details

• Pages: xviii + 171
• Trim size: 5″ x 8″ (127mm x 203mm)
• ISBN
  Softcover: 978-4-908793-49-3
  Ebook: 978-4-908793-50-9
• List Price
  Softcover: US$17.00
  Ebook: US$5.99
• Cover: Daniele Serra
• Download sellsheet (PDF)

Reviews

• Ciuleandra is an enjoyable tale, what with its mix of murder, guilt, and obsession — and, above all else, the losing of the self in the moment, in something like the Ciuleandra (or murder …).
  —Michael Orthofer, The Complete Review

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About the author
Liviu Rebreanu (1885–1944) was a member of a group of writers responding to the changes in Romanian society after the First World War. His 1932 novel The Uprising documents the peasant uprising of 1907, highlighting the class divisions in Romanian society and inspiring sympathy for the rural poor. Danse Macabre remains a popular novel in Romania, and the film adaptation was longlisted for the Best Foreign Film Award at the Oscars in 1985.

About the translator
Gabi Reigh was born in Romania and moved to the UK in her teens. She has won the Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation and is currently engaged in a translation project called ‘Interbellum Series’ focusing on works from the Romanian interwar period. The first titles in this series were Poems of Light by Lucian Blaga and three works by Mihail Sebastian: The Town with Acacia Trees, Women and The Star with No Name.

In the latter years of World War I, renowned Australian writer Miles Franklin travels to the Macedonian Front, joining as a nurse at the Scottish Women’s Hospital near Mt. Kajmakčalan. Soldiers from many nations surge across a Macedonia that has been partitioned, absorbed by its neighbors. Its people struggle to survive in the face of staggering losses and being forcibly conscripted into foreign armies fighting on their soil.

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Arrested for the suspicious death of his mother, “Bernard Novak” explains himself, in court and in prison:

Spending the night by chance in a seedy hotel near a quiet cemetery, he hears the laughter and moans of a couple having sex in a nearby room. Unexpectedly excited by the event, he watches as they leave… and falls in love with the beautiful woman, whom he immediately names M (for Midnight).
He recalls that he has seen the man before: Joko, a minor functionary in the government.

But why her? And why apparently in secret at an unknown hotel?
Obsessed with her, he tries to uncover her secrets. He arranges to “bump into her” at the dime store where she works, and she introduces herself, amazingly, as M! He continues unobtrusively stalking her, expanding their interaction until finally she writes her Skype handle on a newspaper he buys. The long talk begins, stretched over weeks of careful online conversation, gradually winning her trust at a distance, only to have his hopes shattered by his old, sick mother, who constantly claims new illnesses to worry herself and him about.

Their budding relationship shrivels and in despair he reaches out to M once again, in truth. And M comes to his home for dinner…

Details

• Pages: 168
• Trim size: 5″ x 8″ (127mm x 203mm)
• ISBN
  Softcover: 978-4-908793-43-1
  Ebook: 978-4-908793-48-6
• List Price
  Softcover: US$13.00
  Ebook: US$5.99
• Cover: Mike Dubisch

Buy this book

• Amazon
• Barnes & Noble
• Book Depository (free shipping worldwide)
• Also available as an e-book for Amazon Kindle.
• Bookstores and university buyers (contact us directly)

About the author
Svetozar Savić: I was born and lived briefly in Nikšić, Montenegro, in a pink apartment on Serdar Šćepana Street. A significant portion of my inspiration can be traced back to there, although I spent part of my youth in Novi Sad and Belgrade, Serbia, where I received a degree in biotechnology. I finally settled down in Bar and Podgorica, Montenegro. The South is for me; I’m a Mediterranean in both body and soul—the ambivalence of heat and storm.
I believe that I can make a contribution to literature. I grew up with it and it doesn’t mind poverty. The Grape-Stomping Vat was my first novel, containing short stories in the form of a novel, shaped by Vin de liqueur in the Square of Arms in Kotor, thematically cyclic, with a symbolical title The Chronicles of a Grape-Stomping Vat. The Sculptor, my second novel, is about sculpting one’s own life and those of others. It was nominated as the Montenegrin candidate for the Meša Selimović Award in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

About the translator
Vuk Tošić (1976–) was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to American-Serbian parents and raised bilingual. After much meandering, he enrolled in engineering at the University of Belgrade, before finally entering the field of translation. His professional focuses are literary and drama texts, academic papers, socially engaged projects… and when that’s done—he takes his dog and camera on adventures. He is a member of the Association of Literary Translators of Serbia, but carries around the unconfessed aspiration to someday become a 21st century Renaissance man.